The 'Luke Cage' Season 2 Trailer Teases A Female-Focused New Season

Alfre Woodard's shady politician Mariah Dillard will take center stage in Season 2 of Luke Cage, as the newly released trailer for the upcoming season reveals. The first season of Luke Cage focused largely on Luke's battle with the Harlem mobster Cottonmouth, as the villain's cousin Mariah Dillard continued to climb the political ladder while secretly assisting him. But in the new season, Mariah is going to be at the center of all the action. The Luke Cage Season 2 trailer reveals what the upcoming season will be about, and introduces a frightening new supervillain in Harlem.

The newly released Season 2 trailer shows how important Mariah Dillard will be in the new run of Luke Cage episodes. The shady politician is yet again remaining safe from Luke Cage's justice due to another, more pressing big bad who shows up in Harlem: another bulletproof man who goes by the name Bushmaster. Bushmaster clearly has his deadly sights set solely on Mariah, and Luke is forced to agree to protect her in order to keep Harlem safe from this new threat. But being the target of a supernatural killer does not stop Mariah from dealing in her devious ways, as she continues to scheme.

Check out the new Luke Cage trailer below:

Netflix on YouTube

Although she does not have as large a role in the new trailer as Mariah Dillard does, the new clip also introduces the new character of Tilda Johnson, played by Gabrielle Dennis. The trailer shows that Mariah will take Tilda under her wing as something of a protégé, saying that she can be the mother that Tilda never had. Tilda may actually become an incredibly strong ally for Mariah in the new season, since in the comics, her character becomes the villain Nightshade, a supergenius whose pheromones give her the ability to control men and animals.

And it is not just the villains that are showing off the girl power of Luke Cage Season 2. The female focus of the new trailer echoes a clip from the new season that Netflix released a couple of days ago, which features detective extraordinaire Misty Knight teaming up with Iron Fist martial arts expert Colleen Wing to beat up a group of aggressive, misogynistic men. In case you missed The Defenders, Misty is now dealing with an amputated right arm, but she can clearly still hold her own in a fight.

Netflix on YouTube

From all the promo that we have seen so far, it definitely looks like Luke Cage Season 2 will be all about the badass women of the Marvel universe. That will be a welcome shift in focus from Season 1, which was predominantly dude-heavy, with Misty Knight, Mariah Dillard, and Claire Temple serving largely as supporting roles.

The new season will also re-team Luke Cage with Finn Jones' Iron Fist. After both of their standalone series, the two heroes met up (along with Daredevil and Jessica Jones) in last year's The Defenders. The team-up series saw Luke Cage and Iron Fist in particular form an alliance, which is famously referred to as the "Heroes for Hire" team in the Marvel comics. That relationship will continue to develop in the upcoming season of Luke Cage.

Details on what the actual plot of Luke Cage Season 2 will be are still being kept under wraps, although it seems clear that the newly introduced big bad Bushmaster will play a major role. Fans are also curious to see how (or if) the new season will deal with the fallout from Avengers: Infinity War, which decimated the Marvel Cinematic Universe. You can catch all the action when Season 2 of Luke Cage drops on Netflix on Friday, June 22.